


braintrust

by gloss



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Anal Sex, Bickering, Canon-Typical Violence, Force Bond Shenanigans (Star Wars), Force Sex (Star Wars), Identity Porn, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Post-TRoS, That's Really Not How the Force Works!, Undercover Missions, mindreading, undercover as a scoundrel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:20:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28959363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: "We could do it again.""The neuro stuff?" Finn asks.Grinning, Poe says, "Yeah. We should definitely explore it. Play with it. Get our neuro-perv on,Force-fully."Finn shakes his head. "I understood you the first time.""Could take your mind off everything for a second," Poe finishes. "Healthy distraction. Out of the goodness of my heart.""You're a giver."The bloody-faced pirate is far from amused when a resistance hero wrecks his arms deal. Now that they're back together, they've got a lot to work through.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	braintrust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Krytella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krytella/gifts).



> For Krytella in the Equality Matters auction to raise funds for Black Lives Matter. Thank you so much for your donation _and_ your patience.
> 
> This story would quite literally not exist without Hegemony: their support, suggestions, revisions, and lateral-ass thinking made this not just at least 1000% better than it was, but a truly collaborative effort and experience I will always treasure.

8sev, the disillusioned ex-trooper revitalizing the old Solo smuggling effort, sports an unmistakable handprint tattoo across his face and down his neck, the last touch of a dead man memorialized in wet red ink. In some lights, the bloody mark seems to float above the dark skin of his studiously-blank face; in others, it emerges out of his skin like he's been cut open. It is clear that he likes it when you see him coming. He lets the tattoo do most of the communicating. He talks only when necessary, and shoots more often than that. 

He has been planetside for over three tendays now. He is always alone, whether that is eating at one of the street messes or meeting with various contacts from the black markets and criminal cartels. Some nights he simply sits in the outside stairwell of his building and watches the crowds as he spins a Takodanian shiv between his fingers.

8sev has already gained a reputation for driving a hard bargain, but he has some interesting goods on offer.

Local intelligence suggests he has a Wookiee as back-up, and passers-by have certainly heard the growls and seen the shadows of something hairy and hulking from his lodgings, but there isn't any solid confirmation on that.

He is arriving early to the last-but-one meeting for the first phase of the deal. His boots ring across rusty grates as he makes his way toward the very last back room of a warren of back rooms above several square kilometres of disused industrial warehousing. His contact, Mator the Toydarian, is fickle and cranky, far too fond of the grit-stim he imports for his own good. He values promptness. 

The last door opens, and 8sev finds Poe Dameron, political troublemaker wanted in three systems, bearded and bright-eyed, standing from the rickety counter and offering his hand. 

Poe is supposed to be across the galaxy, overseeing a construction project and engineering initiative on Wrollor-3.

The entire time, out of concern for security, Finn has lived in his full pirate regalia as 8sev. He's growled, not spoken; eaten sparingly; kept to himself; practiced sharpshooting, knife-tossing, and esoteric Force skills endlessly. On this shithole moon, he has been working the last details and meetings on a pretty huge arms deal. 

8sev’s flexi-armor, scored with dents and slashes, shifts as he folds his arms and settles his jaw. 

To his contact Mator, who's hovering next to him, he says, "Who's that?"

"You know each other, I'm sure...?"

"Who is that, Mator?" he growls this time, enough bass in his voice that he feels it in his chest. 

"But the rebels," Mator starts, "I thought during the war —"

"The rebels?" Finn interrupts him, flatly. "I worked with them once, Mator. _Once_. You going to hold that against me forever?"

"No, no! Only I thought —" Mator wrings his long, clawed hands. "This alliance will benefit us all!"

Poe jabs his hand closer yet. "Hey, Poe Dameron, good to meet you."

8sev is hardly the kind to dabble in politics, let alone pal around with idealists.

Yet Poe looks for all the world as if they've just run into each other at a raucous Yavin lantern festival. One of these days, he is going to get them both killed.

That is, if Finn doesn't choose to shoot him first. Maybe 8sev should. Another one of his covers, however, already did that, a couple years back on Nar Shadaa. He was playing the ex-trooper to the hilt, after all.

As Poe stands there, hand out, waiting for acknowledgment, Finn levels him with a flat stare of derision. It doesn't take much to harness his irritation with which he says to Mator, "This was supposed to be a private meeting."

Mator's eyestalks wobble. "Gentlemen! We can make this work!"

Sitting again, knees wide apart and hands clasped between them, Poe tilts his head and looks Finn over.His interest is frank, open and unmistakable. He’s _turned on_ — or, at the moment, willing to be. Unbelievable. "You're mad, stranger?"

"I am surprised," Finn replies, tasting acid. "By a great number of things."

"Sounds to me like you’re _mad_."

"I don't like surprises."

He has spent so much time setting up this deal, bribing his way to Mator and then cultivating him with flattery, hard currency, and referrals to a few lesser-known stim factories. He has obtained untraceable credits and blind warehouses, all in order to divert three cruisers' worth of armament cargo off the black market and, if that works, a lead on slavers supplying the armament manufacturers. 

"Why so nervous, chum?" Poe asks, his voice light and friendly. Finn opens his mouth, but Poe looks past him. "Mator, buddy? Talk to me."

Finn’s blood burns. Of course he’s been lonely as hell, but it has been worth it — or it would have been, had he succeeded in getting that cargo and tracking down its origin points.

"Please, please, sirs —" Mator indicates his own vacated chair. "Sit! This is not a bad surprise! An opportunity for collaboration!"

He wants to turn on his heel and go, but after a long moment, Finn lowers himself into the seat. Something more than his own stubbornness keeps him here; it's probably Poe. 

"You know I work alone," he tells Mator.

Poe snorts. "Your social skills could use some work."

"I'm not interested in collaboration. What's more, I think my associate may have something to say about all these last minute changes,” In this narrow space, he is both facing Poe and slightly next to him, their knees brushing. Finn angles his body away and says to Mator, “that guy doesn’t like to talk so much as deliver retribution, you understand…” 

"No!" Mator nearly shouts, then rubs his claws over his face. 

"Wonder if you're in over your flat little head," Finn continues. "That why you're bringing in some pretty-faced starry-eyed idealist?"

"Hey!" Poe protests.

"What's going on, Mator?" Finn lets the Force wash lightly over Mator's mind, but Toydarians are infamously immune to any but the most targeted probing. "Talk to me."

"No, of course not. I assure you, there's nothing wrong."

"I expected more, I gotta say," Poe puts in, smiling like the man who’s a medal'd hero in seven systems. "I'd heard you were a very esteemed trader, someone who knew a good deal when they saw it.” 

Around Mator, even through him, the Force surges darkly. Finn's still annoyed with Poe, but that irritation had been masking the very real threat of Mator's treachery. That, and the Toydarian obduracy to Force reading.

"This meeting is over," Finn says, standing. “Neither of you are worth my time."

"Hey, don't—" Poe touches Finn's elbow; he shouldn't be able to feel it through the flex-armour he wears, but the Force puckers around them, blooms outward, delighted in a way that it only ever gets when Poe’s around him. 

The floor drops and disappears.

It all happens at once; Mator flings himself back into the entry, thick yellow smoke billows from the vents in the ceiling, Poe shouts as he's caught off-guard. 

It's hard to focus, but Finn pulls away, slows it down in his head. He turns around, greeted by a mortar blaster pointed directly at him. He raises his arms, in both directions: one hand toward the door, the other toward Poe. His armor groans with the sudden movement.

The hinged floor bangs against the sides as Finn uses all those good feelings in the force to push Poe against the far wall, loop him against the thick plasticrete, hold him safe. 

At the door, Mator’s wings are spreading, flapping madly, as his grip on his blaster slips. Finn turns his hand, palm outward, to nudge the mortars off-course. He pinches his thumb against his first two fingers, then jerks his arm back in a violent plucking motion. Mator shouts, a screech that manages to cut through the sickening wet crunch of his cervical vertebrae.

Floating upright, Finn points his toes down, keeps his shoulders relaxed. 

He reaches backward to loosen Poe and tugs him forward through the foul, stinging smoke until he can wrap an arm around Poe's waist and dive. Poe is flush against him, breath thundering, his body a familiar weight and pressure despite the unusual circumstances.

They land three stories down, just shy of a carpet riddled with rusty junk and upright spikes as well as the two chairs, the shattered counter, and several other table tops.

Looks like this kind of thing happened a lot. 

"What the fuck just happened? What was that?" Poe's shouting as they land.

Finn swallows against a surge of sour bile. The best option here is to let Poe yell out his fear and confusion, but they don't have the luxury of unlimited time.

"What the hell?" Poe kicks at the glass and nearest spikes.

"Awful," Finn says during a slight pause as Poe inhales.

"What did you do to him, anyway?” 

"Tied his spinal cord into a knot." Finn's balance wavers; bile's sloshing in the back of his throat. The exertion makes him want to throw up and pass out, not necessarily in that order.

"Is that new?" Poe asks, breathing heavily. Ah, Finn thinks, shock. "What about me? Were you going to tell me?"

"No, I’ve been able to do that one for a while. The one on you."

After staring at him, silently, for a while, Poe turns. He viciously kicks at several more spikes.

"What the _hell_?" He finds a large propeller, lying on its back, and kicks that, too, only to hop back when the impact crushes his toes. The propeller does not move.

"Yeah," Finn replies, breathing deep to clear his mind as best he can, "what the hell _were_ you doing in there?"

Poe whirls on him. "Me? You're yelling at me?"

Shrugging, Finn glances around. "Only one here. Speaking of which, we should —"

"Me?" Flushed and sweating, Poe looks furious as well as hurt and uncomprehending. "The hell are you mad at me for?"

"— we should get out of here," Finn finishes saying and pushes past Poe to check the next passageway. He pulls out a blaster and pushes a door, opening into an empty warehouse. He’s not all that strong at sensing people in other rooms who aren’t safe and friendly; they're going to have to creep along the walls to get near an exit.

"I didn't do shit!" Poe hisses behind him. "I came, actually, to help you out —"

"Yeah, you were an enormous help," Finn mutters, holding up his hand for quiet, so he can concentrate on pushing out tendrils into the Force and inquiring about any nearby threats. "Disrupting that deal? Crashing my meeting? Great help. Thank you _ever_ so much."

Poe grips Finn's shoulder and squeezes. "I'm not the bad guy here."

"No, the bad guy’s dead," Finn says. "So that leaves you."

"Unbelievable."

"Believe it," he snaps. “Can you be any more conspicuous like this?” 

"What do you want me to do, right now?" Poe snaps. "Because I gotta say, I’m not really all that sure."

"Shut up," Finn says, "and try to look like we’re not going to a place you’ll like."

"I mean, that one’s hard. I'd love more to work with."

They stalk in relative silence back to Finn's lodgings. Paranoia sharpens his already overwhelmed nerves; he keeps Poe in front of him, his hand on the small of Poe's back. Like this, he can feel who’s looking at Poe as they walk along, who’s turning away from what clearly looks like a clumsy hostage situation. The first curfew siren has already sounded, so the crosswalks are crowded with bodies, but the local paths, some only a block or two long, dashing between old buildings, are emptier. The air is close and humid, like it just rained and it will resume at any time. Finn takes them on a looping, indirect route. 

"Just like old times," Poe mutters while they wait for passage across one of the rickety footbridges. The droid operating the bridge doesn't pay them any mind, but the clutch of drunk kids approaching from the other side of the canal are peering quizzically in their direction. "Are you awash with nostalgia? I sure am."

Finn shoves him, quickly, "Shut _up_."

Once inside his building, he pushes in front of Poe to lead the way to the basement, and from there, down an old fuel delivery shaft to his bolthole. His false suite is two floors up, lit on a timer, with the occasional Wookiee roar for atmosphere.

Down here, he works by flame and several garlands of bioluminescent clonal zooids. He shows Poe the closet with a fresher basin and toilet, then checks the perimeter and single exit before shedding his armor. The big pieces unlocked and in the corner where it can get pulled to him if it’s needed, he washes up, and gets to work on dinner.

"Really was trying to help," Poe says from the closet.

Finn makes a low sound to indicate he heard. He tips fresh raw dumplings out of their sack into the hot oil in the pan and leans against the inner wall to keep an eye on them.

"Got some spicy intel on Mator, see," Poe continues, raising his voice as a stray Wookiee growl plays over the security system, "little birdie from Geera-Hannuh cartel sang…” 

Finn's eyes flip up, devastating and serious, "Geera-Hannuh told you something about Mator?"

"You know how cartels talk," Poe says, shrugging. 

He'd been made. _Fuck_. 

"I couldn't raise you on comms,” Poe continues. "Not Chewie either —"

"He's on a spiritual quest," Finn says. "I'm deep undercover. Or at least I _thought_ I was."

"Uh-huh, so I gathered," Poe says, then adds, "Eventually, probably gave away too much on my end, too. Neither of you is any good at keeping in touch, you know that?"

"So we’re irresponsible and reckless," Finn puts in, easily. "However will you cope?"

"Man —" Poe stops on the threshold between closet and room. "Why are you being such an asshole?"

"I'm tired," Finn tells him. "I’ve apparently been burned for almost a ten-day, Geera just lured both of us into a trap! Everything I've been doing just went to shit, all of this work...just gone."

"That's not completely true," Poe notes. "You killed the guy who could rat on us, remember? And you did it in the most freaky-cool possible way, too."

"That's not how this works, Poe."

Poe's grinning at him, offering an apology without having to say so. The Force trails around him, bright enough that Finn needs to squint.

"I'm just not..." Finn trails off and his balance tips sharply. He grabs the edge of the cooker before he falls over. " _Fuck_."

"It was a double cross, dude. Comes with the territory. Upside? They think we're dead right now." Smelling like Finn's own soap, Poe crowds close. He runs his fingers against the red tattoo on Finn's face, ripe with a meaning he still doesn’t grasp, even after seeing it so often during the last few years. "Let's get that off you, the ink's going to your head."

Finn twists away and does it himself, rolling the decal into a tiny sticky ball in his palm. "Better?"

"It is," Poe says quietly. He's looking at Finn so gently now that it's somehow worse than yelling at each other. All of Finn's exhaustion doubles and swamps him.

The dumplings crackle in the pan. Finn pushes Poe away to turn his attention to them.

"So, um, that's new," Poe says, his tone exaggeratedly light, deliberately casual. "The whole...neurological manipulation approach. With the spinal cords and such."

"Pretty new, yeah."

"Shoved around, dangled in zero-G, I'm used to that," Poe says. When Finn glances over, Poe raises his palms. "Love it, thank you, look forward to more of that in the future. Professionally _and_ personally."

Finn smiles at that, but, for once, Poe doesn't grin back. Instead, he persists. "But playing someone's nerves like that? Like an instrument, like a Dantooine lute, _that_ is something else."

"Not like an instrument," Finn says. "I'm not that good. Not yet."

"You know what I mean."

"I had a lot of time on my hands out here," Finn replies and turns the dumplings one by one with the tongs. "Read a lot."

"Huh." Poe thinks it over. Out of the corner of his eye, Finn watches the thoughts travel, back up, double back and swirl across Poe's face. "That's really cool."

"I guess."

"I'm giving you a _compliment_." Poe shifts in his weight to knock his shoulder against Finn's. 

Finn sets down the tongs. "Thank you."

"Fuck you, it _is_ really cool," Poe adds, as if his sincerity is in doubt. "Where'd you read about it?"

After wiping his hands and checking the flame, Finn sits down heavily on the molded plasticrete bench. After a moment, he draws his knees up and loops his arms around them. "Nowhere in particular. Just something I thought of trying out along the way."

Nodding, humming a little under his breath, Poe _looks_ relaxed. His gaze, however, keeps darting to the cooker, and despite the slackness in his posture, there are clear indications in the Force that he's about a second and a half away from grabbing food off the pan. In the present, he's crouched here and friendly, but his silhouette keeps jumping, reaching for the food.

Just as casually, Finn rolls his eyes. Poe's hand flips and tucks into the small of his back.

"Hey!"

"They need to finish cooking," Finn says.

"I wasn't!"

"Call it preventative, then."

Poe struggles, rocking back and forth, grunting as he tries to pull free his hand. The Wookiee recording plays, mocking his own struggle and making him look madder. After a bit, breathing heavily, he says lowly, "This is pretty hot, you know. Bet you didn't realize that."

"What is?"

"Force thing! This! Invisible Jedi bondage."

"Oh, that?" Finn lifts the pan from the flame and flicks free the Force's hold on Poe's ulnar and radial nerves. "Forgot about that."

It drains from his wrist, his elbow, his shoulder and Poe falls to the side, shocked as he shakes out his hand as if it's numb. "Jackass!"

"I know your moves, Dameron. Subtle you are not." Finn serves out the dumplings, five apiece, and hands Poe a battered ceramic mug full of dipping sauce. "Eat up, give thanks, and so on."

Poe nods impatiently; as soon as Finn's finished speaking, he shoves a dumpling into his mouth, then devours another before he speaks again. When he does, his voice is high-pitched, since the dumplings burned his entire mouth. "We could do it again."

"The neuro stuff?"

Grinning, Poe swoops a third dumpling through the air to cool it off. Before popping it all the way into his mouth, he says, "Yeah. We should definitely explore it. Play with it. Get our neuro-perv on, _Force_ -fully. Get it?"

Finn shakes his head. "I understood you the first time."

"Could take your mind off everything for a second," Poe finishes. "Healthy distraction. Out of the goodness of my heart."

Finn has all his dumplings sliced in thirds and cooling. He drizzles sauce over them, then starts eating. He wants to remain angry with Poe; his disappointment at the failure of his plan is so huge that it needs a target. It’s hard to not feel stung by it, tracking back over exactly where he went wrong. 

He gives Poe a small smile and shrugs. "You're a giver."

It would be very easy to blame Poe for everything. Easy, but manifestly unfair.

 _You don't even wanna know how many times it happened to me, big deal_ , he imagines Solo saying from a corner. 

"It could be great for hand-to-hand," Poe says a little later, when his plate is nothing more than a sticky puddle of sauce through which he's dragging his finger. He sucks clean his finger all the way down to where it meets his hand, levelling his gaze on Finn the entire time. 

"You want to talk _strategy_ ," Finn replies, setting aside his own plate and taking Poe's, too.

"We could, if you want."

"We could," Finn agrees, nodding as he slides the plates into the composter, "we could come up with a plan and all, but I don’t really see why you’d want to when I could be fucking you from the inside out."

Poe's eyes widen. "That's a possibility?"

"Poe," Finn says slowly, peeling off his jersey. "Anything's possible once you're around. You know that."

No matter how much he tries to hide it, Poe’s breath hitches. 

Finn's not tired any longer. He doesn't know what he is. The pace of his thoughts is rapid but irregular. Jumpy. As he edges closer to Poe, however, he is more and more certain that this is the direction he needs to move in. He finds Poe's mouth, kisses him, pulls him all the way in until they breathe the same air.

"You're getting really strong," Poe says when the kiss subsides. He squeezes Finn's waist. "With the Force! You were always strong-strong."

Finn laughs, low in his throat, as he undoes the fasteners on Poe's overshirt. "Thanks."

"I mean it." Wriggling out of the overshirt, Poe goes to undo his fly, but pauses, looking up at Finn. "Last we talked, you were working on focused tracking."

"Yeah, still am," Finn tells him, moving Poe's hands out of the way so he can undo Poe's trousers himself. "Doesn't come as naturally as this did."

"Huh." Poe bites his lip as he peers at Finn. 

For a second, his earlier irritation flares back up: _What?_ , he thinks, _what's that look supposed to mean?_ Just as quickly, that thought winks out in a rush of affection and, he realizes, relief.

"Missed you," Finn says. The truth of that statement clarifies the rest of his thoughts, explains his frantic feelings, calms him. "A lot."

Poe's smile takes its time spreading across his face. "Mutual, you know."

"Yeah, I do." He feels silly, foolish, even, for having taken this long to sort out what he was feeling. He'd like to think he's a little more clever than that.

"Don't know about you," Poe continues as he stands, then has to stamp out the numbness in one foot, "but I think reacquaintance deserves a better stage. Something bigger, flatter, maybe even cushionier?"

"That's not a word," Finn says. He double-checks that the cooker is turned off and slides their plates and cups into the slot on the washer. Washing his hands at the tiny station, he tells Poe, "Hit the button over there."

Poe hesitates, hand hovering over the button. "Why?"

"I'm not pranking you," Finn says. "It lowers the bed."

Poe looks like he's still considering the likelihood of a prank, so Finn takes the three steps necessary to join him on that side of the room and covers Poe's hand with his own. "Together?"

"All right," Poe says warily.

"You're so strange," Finn says as they depress the mechanism. "You'll drop everything and come out here on the word of a cartel snitch, but you're scared to hit a button?"

Poe shifts closer, murmuring, "I have good priorities."

After a rattle inside the wall to their right, the platform hiccups open and creaks downward. Finn steps back, wriggling out of his trousers. "See?"

"What about the Wookiee noises?" 

"What about them?"

"I'm all for covert intrigue, but they're kind of..." Poe trails off. He shrugs and adds, "You know."

"Killing the mood?"

"Yeah."

"I think they add to the mood, actually." Finn sits on the edge of the bed platform and tugs Poe forward, then eases his trousers down his hips. His hands settle in familiar territory, angles and warm skin his palms would know anywhere. His thumbs trace the sides of Poe's shaft. "You don't?"

A momentary grimace flees Poe's face as he realizes Finn is joking. "I know it's been a while, but —"

"I'm not into Wookiees now, don't worry," Finn says, leaning back and pulling Poe over him. 

After a moment, Poe asks, "How about your pirate friend? He's more than welcome to plunder this."

They've both worn so many costumes, so many different pieces of armor and ID, over the years. Those men visit their bed, join them, tell them what to do or just watch, intent and erect. They're a crowd, all of them, jockeying for position.

Finn doesn't respond at first. He kisses Poe harder and drags them up the bed.

"Hmm?" Poe breaks for breath. His lashes are already beaded with sweat, his lips swollen, stung. "What do you say?"

The Force swells around them, spills in a rush from Finn's mouth. "Been him too long. Just want —"

"Us?" Poe asks.

Finn nods and they're kissing again, undressing and grinding alternately, arousal corkscrewing around them faster and sharper by the moment. They've always been good at this, getting right in synch physically, but that doesn't make it any less thrilling when it happens.

He's got Poe naked, on his back, one leg hooked around the back of Finn's thighs. He's got them both right where they've longed to be, for months now. He's halfway inside Poe and the Force is intensifying around them by the moment.

He braces a hand on the wall beside Poe's head and tries to catch his breath. Poe is tight, clenching and throbbing, around his cockhead, the air between them is hot and full of sweat-stink, and Finn wishes he could have more. Get more. _Be_ more, somehow, even, than this.

The Force glances off Poe, like the lick of a tongue or caress from a few fingers. In response, Poe groans loud.

"Get in here," Poe urges. "Get inside me, take what you want."

It's not the first time the Force has pushed its way in and dragged Finn along (as witness or patsy or collaborator, it's never clear). But this time, the contact reverberates through Poe, draws Finn deeper without him having to thrust, and holds Finn arched and still.

"No." He loosens his grip on Poe's waist and orders the Force to slacken around them. "No, I won't. I can't."

"Sure you can." Poe peers up at him. His eyes have gone bottomless and glittery, his voice guttural. "Always."

He kisses Poe, and when he pulls back to thrust deeper, the Force accelerates.

Finn feels Poe open up by the pores, the Force peeling him back, revealing him and reveling in him. He sits on the precipice, wants to dive in and knows it’s dangerous. 

Poe shines, smiling, before Finn. It’s that old, familiar shit-eating _we're in this together and we're in deep_ grin. The sight of it loosens Finn from the toil of 8sev’s work. 

In fact, the Force starts baring him in turn, follicle by follicle. It presses him forward and down to kiss that smile, suck on it, fucking _savor_ its every promise and tease.

He's still here, caught in his own skin as Poe is caught in his, but the Force swells and splashes back and forth between them, enlarging them, washing him forward and inside, until he's also within Poe. Until he strokes the fine webs of nerves that make Poe up, plucking at strands, shaking as they resound.

Poe moans around him; Finn is there, caught in the net, and trembles in the storm of sound. Poe's mind spills open, overruns itself, swirls across Finn's consciousness. Finn sinks through snatches of memory — light through tropical leaves, the scent of mother's neck, a fiery crash — and streams right into desire. 

"Fuck," Poe grunts, with his mouth, with his _mind_. "Harder. Deeper —"

Finn's here, and there, and melting everywhere. He gropes for purchase, fondles a tangle of nerves snarled up with desires before he shoves his face into the center like it's a bouquet. Around him and through him, Poe vibrates with moans as his system shouts a chorus of needs and hopes and fantasies.

He wants stormtroopers; Leia; _Solo?_ ;

he wants to outrun hyperspace; fly apart in a nova; shout himself dumb;

he wants to get shoved and battered and bruised bloody; 

He wants to sleep in someone's arms. 

He wants so much, and so much of that involves Finn, features Finn's face and voice and touch, orbits around Finn, that Finn halts for a moment. Confronted by his own features, he regards himself, feels his own touch as a stranger. Finn stops, and hangs there, wherever he is, breathless. 

Poe wants Finn's tongue inside his hole. 

He wants to drown, choking, in Finn's come. 

Speared and spread open on Finn's cock, heaving for breath.

Poe pleads. Poe offers, and opens _more_. Finn hesitates.

He wants every bit as much as Poe does, he's sure of that, but he wants differently. How he wants is never as wild and tumultuous as how Poe does. The clamorous tangles and cascades of need are better tamed, more orderly, within Finn. If he stays here too long, he could rupture whatever beautiful chaos it is that produces _Poe_. Worse yet, he suddenly doubts if he can ever match Poe for sheer effusion. 

Maybe, he can't. 

Maybe, he shouldn't even try.

What does he look like, here, now?

He shines in Poe's eyes, he's learning that. For Poe, within Poe, Finn promises something, something he can't make out on his own. 

Something that he doubts, suddenly, he won't be able to give, however much he wants to.

Poe pinches Finn's arm, then cups his cheek and speaks. Finn doesn't hear what he says. Poe shimmies around, shoves ineffectually at Finn's shoulder, then reaches lower. When Poe slaps Finn's ass, hard, the pain jangles through Finn, a red flash that fades, then resounds. 

"Hey," Poe is saying, "hey, hey, all right here?"

Finn's head drops like a stone, hits Poe's shoulder as he heaves for breath. His hips keep working; Poe keeps working back against him. Finn ruts, wishing for mindlessness. Poe's mouth is on Finn's ear, his cheek, then the underside of his jaw. What Finn finds instead of mindlessness is a tawny radiance, drawing him closer yet, as the clamor of Poe's body — nerves, thoughts, heartbeat and bile, lungs and sloshing guts — bundles him up.

Finn keeps heaving. Poe keeps fucking him back, pushing and prodding until they're on their sides. His chin bangs against Finn's jaw. 

"Move, man —" Poe mutters, poking at Finn. 

"What do you think I'm trying to do?"

"Dunno, but it's not pretty." As he wriggles to one side, one of his arms flailing for purchase, he nearly catches Finn in the eye. 

Finn rears away, bangs his head on the wall, and curses.

"Some Force-user you are," Poe tells him once Finn's splayed on his back. "What grace, such compelling fluency of motion."

"Best in this room, at least," Finn says and Poe laughs, dipping his head in acknowledgement.

"Just saying, a little lift, a nudge, they wouldn't go amiss —" Poe's still chattering even as he clambers atop Finn. He slides his hands into Finn's and holds them on Finn's chest, just at the flare of ribs, as he rocks himself back onto Finn's dick.

"I'm sorry," Finn tries to say.

Poe shakes his head. Several locks of hair are stuck to his forehead, obscuring one eye. Although his mouth is red and swollen, he bites his lip anyway and shimmies another few centimeters downward, and then again, until Finn is inside him to the root.

"The hell are you sorry for?" Poe asks when he's all the way seated. 

"I shouldn't have —"

"Oh, for being an asshole after the meeting went sideways! Yeah, you should apologize for that."

Finn grunts in annoyance. "No, not that."

"Because that was totally uncalled for."

"Entirely called for," Finn tells him. Poe scowls for a moment, but a shift and sigh erase the expression, make him look slack and overcome. Finn rocks up into him several more times, watching how Poe's face registers the friction and motion. "I'm apologizing for —"

He has to shake his head; sweat's creeping into his eyes, like a mirror reversing tears.

"For breaking into your mind," he finally says. The words aren't the best, but they're all he can come up with right now.

Poe works his mouth for a couple moments before managing to speak. "What? Just now?"

"Yes," Finn says. "I got pulled in deeper than I meant and —" He bites his lip and swallows. Inside, all around him, Poe is crushing heat and unrelenting velvet.

"Pulled in? I did that?"

"Force," Finn tries to say. It's hard to talk; heat suffuses him and every part of him is tingling and yearning.

"Force doesn't make you do what you don't want to do," Poe says. Before Finn can reply — he doesn't know what to say, but he knows Poe is right — Poe adds, "I let you in, anyway," Poe tells him and squeezes both of Finn's hands painfully. "Red carpet, open invite, no RSVP ever necessary. Move the hell in if you want, love to have you —"

He rocks down against Finn, then drags himself up, setting a rhythm that is both far too slow and not nearly careful enough. Soon, he releases Finn's hands and plants his palms on Finn's ribs. His fingers dig in as he moves faster, the friction between them brightening the dusky glow. He's fierce up there, determined; his hips jerk unpredictably, this way, that, on some upstrokes. 

His eyes narrow, gaze levelled on Finn's face, as joy washes through and sharpens his tenacity. Finn reads reassurance there on Poe's face, feels it in his depths. Everywhere, it's sparking between nerve endings, and then, joining it, urgent need. He's familiar with what this _looks_ like on the surface — he's seen it so many times before — but from inside, within everything, at the center of the whirl, it is as blinding as it is transfixing. 

He grabs at Poe, gets a shoulder in one hand, the swell of his hip in the other, and pulls Poe deeper onto him, even as he thrusts up ever higher. Poe has to slide back, body fanning open at the waist, as Finn drives upward. Poe gets one foot on the bed and Finn bangs his palm on the wall as he works himself deeper.

Poe's groans go breathy, wheezing, and he twists, contorts, coming on Finn with a few heaves and one long curse. The glow still brightens; inside, he flutters and clutches around Finn's dick while outside he grabs at him, biting down, scraping nails, hanging on. The back of his head thumps the wall, alternating with grunts of _yes_ , thump- _yes_ -thump. Finn chases the pleasure, surges into the need and joy still radiating ever more brightly. He's caught Poe against the wall, their mouths mashed painfully together. He sucks down the howl and sudden out-fling of limbs when Poe comes, dry and wrenching, a second time.

Finn rolls them over, drags Poe's ass up his thighs to push the rest of himself inside. The snarl of sensation, blinding and barbed now, scraping as much as it's buoying him, tightens unbearably. Three times over, pulling him out of joint and phase, until Poe's head hangs back, throat exposed to Finn's mouth, and suddenly Finn's coming, his tangle of nerves and need letting go. He chokes on a shout of relief and collapses.

It takes a while for his body to reorganize and remember itself. Things are flashing and numb, tingling a lot. He stays inside Poe as long as he can, until they're cold and sticky, flaccid and aching, dozing.

A Wookiee howl, mournful as well as terrifying, shakes them both fully awake.

"You said!" Poe punches Finn's shoulder. "You said you'd turn it off."

"I thought I did."

Poe freezes. "That _is_ the audio, right? Chewie's not outside that door yelling at me for despoiling you, is he?"

"He doesn't do that any more," Finn assures him as he stands on trembling legs. He checks the audio, then the visual feed from his fake suite. "Not much. No, we're good. It's just the security audio."

"Wait, he does? Much? How not much?" 

"Sometimes he gets overprotective," Finn says, a little distractedly. He wraps a shirt around his waist and reviews the holo footage. Everything looks fine. "When he's drunk."

They wash up, eat again, and return to bed. The bioluminescent garlands dim a little when Finn turns down the heat, but he can still make out the lines and planes of Poe's face. 

"Tell me what you want," Poe says, his voice little more than a rasp and a texture in the dark. He's on his side, hand on Finn's chest, fingers curved against Finn's clavicle.

"I've got it."

"Everybody wants more, though."

"I don't," Finn insists even as the fantasies start to unspool. They move erratically, jerkily at first, then faster, more smoothly. The flood gathers momentum even as it widens and accrues detail. These scraps of desire, animated, focus on sliding _into_ Poe, getting all the way in, licking the back of his tongue, reading the reflection of his own wants, pinching his prostate from below and suckling at its roots. 

Finn wants in, deep and irrevocable; he wants a place he can't ever lose. He wants, simultaneously and impossibly, for Poe to fill him wholly, seal him tight. 

"Yeah, you do," Poe says simply. His cock twitches against Finn's leg. "Wish I could cooperate, but —"

A thrill blooms inside Finn's chest, expanding to suffuse every square centimeter. He feels buoyant and tense, exhilarated without any particular cause. "You want to get hard?"

"Love to," Poe says, then sighs mournfully. "You probably don't know this, but I'm not fifteen any more."

"Just act like it most of the time," Finn says with a smile. He reaches between them and lightly grasps Poe's dick; it's heavy and warm and soft, everything he isn't right now. He's light and cold and sharp, and as he tips his forehead against Poe's, he breathes out. 

"Sensitive, man —"

"Work with me, come on," Finn replies. He finds the nerves forking and running the length of Poe's cock, then urges them awake, strokes them up until the blood is rushing in and filling the tissue, until Poe's groaning again and bucking.

Straddling him, Finn rushes through slicking himself. Poe tries to help, but his hips are working madly and his eyes are huge in the dark. He watches Finn and doesn't blink, his mouth open and chest heaving. When Finn starts to take him inside, however, Poe's eyes squeeze shut and his hands spasm and flex. Another moment, and he's watching again, as Finn sinks down, and down, all the while nudging the waves of sensation over Poe, into him, letting him feel it with Finn.

Poe digs his fingers into Finn's thighs and gasps.

Hand braced on the wall, Finn fucks himself and doesn't look away. He doesn't plummet into Poe this time, but instead expands, wider and wider, until they're together inside, sharing every flicker and gutter of a nerve. He's filled up by Poe but rocks his hips and plaits the Force like he's doing the fucking, and the scintillating, billowing jumble of sensation melts and runs over boundaries and distinctions.

He shows himself to Poe; he shows Poe himself. It's bright and thrilling and he's moaning now, head hanging down, his sweat splattering Poe's upturned face. Poe strains inside him, and Finn fucks down, grinding his pelvis unbearably, until they tip to the side and he sees that they're about 20 — no, 30, 35 — centimetres above the bed, floating on a billowing, nearly-incandescent Force.

Finn starts laughing then, overwhelmed, and wraps both his arms around Poe. His orgasm slides down his spine, gathering speed, pulling everything he is toward a single enormously bright point. Poe bites at his earlobe and smears a kiss down his cheek. Their laughter harmonizes as he thrusts deeper into the dazzle.

Finn rides out surging waves that blind and carry; he clutches at Poe and tries to think just clearly enough to lower them safely. They bounce down and land in a breathless, tangled sprawl. 

Poe, heavy-lidded and smiling privately, cleans Finn up. His hands are gentle; in their times apart, Finn can forget just how careful the guy can be. This time is— _will be_ different. 

He turns on his side and burrows his face against the warm curve of Poe's upper arm.

"What, that's all?" Poe asks in mock-surprise. "Huh, and here I thought you'd be ready for seventeen more rounds. Some sex Jedi you are."

"Sleep now," he drags the coverlet up to his chin and rubs his face on Poe's arm. "Sleep means shut up."

"Can I turn off the security thing? The beeps are killing me."

Even though his head feels lighter than helium, it's an effort to lift it and look at Poe. He's so tired. "Are you insane? No."

"It's really loud."

"Because it's _security_."

Poe sighs dramatically but doesn't argue further. He slips down, so they're face to face, grabbing more than his fair share of the coverlet. Finn is too exhausted and content to do anything more than snort at the steal.

The last tingles and throbs reach Finn's horizon and flicker away. Poe kisses his eyelids; one, then the other. 

*

Poe’s eyes open while it’s still dark, or at least not visibly daylight. Something is different just now.

This isn't his first time getting plumbed. Ren's presence had reverberated, squelched like black mold and shrieked like dying Banthas, in the back of Poe's thoughts for years. It wanted to rot him, he knows, to the core. 

This is nothing like that. 

Finn’s so very warm in sleep; anyone else would feel feverish while Finn is simply relaxed. 

Poe pushes himself up to sitting, his lower half still pinned a bit under the weight of their tangled legs. He reaches for his comms, opens up notes from BB-8, one hand scrolling through holos. Even now, as he closes auto-message after auto-message, his hand comes up and strokes at the curls sitting in the nape of Finn’s neck, drawn to soothing in a way he’s never been before. 

It would be easy to let this moment pass as yet another irrelevant data point, yet more history between them. He knows how memory works, how it rations the specific into an abstract generality. But the generality, here, is that they don’t spend nearly enough time together; they can’t, not with so much still left to do. 

A small, sullen part of Poe always wishes they could work together more than apart. Why can't the separations be the rare and memorable events, rather than reunions? What part of _I can't do this without you_ was hard to understand? Or, worse, easy to dismiss?

He wants, maybe even needs, to keep this moment clear and discrete. Here, after whatever just happened, Finn's presence radiates within him. It feels like he’s acquired an extra set of nerves, or upgraded a fuel compressor: he's still himself, just _more_.

Comms finished, he stretches slowly, enjoying the wiggle of his toes and ache in his crotch, deep in his hole. 

He's sleepy again, and hungry in more ways than one and Finn is warm and smells like sex. Perfect conditions for Poe's dick starting to twitch; most nights he works with far less. There's a twinge of pain along the edge of gathering pleasure, as exhaustion sets off new desire. 

He closes his eyes, cups himself, thinks about 8sev. He thinks about how brash the guy is, more than capable of taking a Resistance general captive. Blood-marked and fierce, notoriously patient, 8sev could keep him in the hold of the ex-corporate corvette Poe used to get here, strung up by the Force, shivering in the chill. 

He imagines it: arms tucked just over his head, a snug little pressure just at his windpipe that's not nearly enough to choke but more than enough to _remind_ and discomfit, his legs spread a little wider than natural. It would be hard to move, like that, held fast to one of the cabin walls. And he'd be panting, maybe fingered maddeningly by the Force, or mouthing at it as it strokes his soft palate, unable to break free as he lost his mind in the pleasure of it wrapping around his cock. 

Heat, golden and syrupy, pulses through Poe all over again. In this tiny bed, his breath hitches and he holds onto himself a little tighter, a leg falling off the edge. 

8sev would smirk up at him and set about pedestrian chores like he’s not even there. He would spend all his time sharpening his shiv, and cleaning his blasters and coordinating side deals, rearranging the cargo hold. Doing everything to make this new home his own, just about forgetting Poe is there.

He's hard against his palm, his chest is getting tight, and his hand slides from Finn’s hair to his own.

And maybe, in the haze of all this, he’d let his grip against Poe’s lower half loosen _just a bit_ when he was bored and settled in. It would feel even more intense, watching 8sev watching his hips fuck back and up into invisible hands keeping him on a knife’s edge, loosening him up for negotiation, taunting him with every bit of how good bending to his will could be. A command performance for his captor, with Poe as audience and soloist both.

His hips start moving now, short strokes into imaginary touches, as he tries his hardest to ride this feeling out. He bites his lip and closes his eyes and pumps into a too-loose hand, shaking with how much he wants—

The beeps of Finn's paranoid security system suddenly escalate to a single piercing whine before abruptly cutting out.

Finn sits straight up, eyes open. "What'd you do?"

Poe jumps, hands flying up in surrender. "Nothing!" 

A loud thump, somewhere higher in the building, resounds hollowly. Finn vaults off the bed into the main room. Fully— _gloriously_ —naked, he checks the security feed while stepping into a pair of briefs and slapping on a new red sim-tat over his face with practiced ease. 

He opens a cabinet by the door, calls over his shoulder, "Get ready to go." 

“What?” 

Finn—or rather, 8sev—doesn’t legitimize that with a response, tosses a blaster from inside the cabinet back toward Poe, and disappears.

He’s clearly got a death wish, Poe thinks, confronting a gang of intruders in nothing but his undies. 

Swinging out of bed, he keeps one eye on the security feed as he fumbles for his clothes. 

On the holo, five humanoids, one quite a bit shorter than the others, pace around Finn's fake apartment, kicking over electronics, upending rickety furniture, and gesticulating a lot. One freezes and drops, and then another, revealing Finn. No, that man is all 8sev, sharp and engaged. Poe leans closer, mesmerized; the three left standing, including the too-short clear leader, open fire. 8sev waves away the blasts, and the bolts double back onto the firing party as 8sev advances on Shorty. 

Poe's eyes widen as 8sev pulls out and extends a vibrosword, glowing in the dark. Maybe the guy didn’t have a death wish after all. 

They're talking, though the discussion is far from balanced: Shorty yells, Finn keeps his sword level and shakes his head slow. He looks like a stranger. There's no audio.

Poe is _half a second_ from flying up the ladder to see what's going on when something tugs at the back of his hair. It’s like his dad used to do in the final, exasperated bid to get Poe to pay attention. _Stay there_ , he thinks, though the thought is not his own. _Find armor and a disguise. I'll be back._

The thoughts belong to someone else — _Finn_ , Poe tells himself, don't mince words in your own fucking head — but they're welcome there. They arise naturally, fit easily, a little more easily than some of the things he manages to come up with.

Where the hell is he supposed to find a disguise? Without his usual trunk of costumes and wigs, he's out of luck. He hasn't finished that thought before his attention is directed toward the cabinet Finn left open. Inside there is an impressive number of blasters and lethal-looking knives as well as a crate of various clothes. Poe spares a moment of pride that his interest in costuming has rubbed off on Finn as he wriggles into a pair of armored tights and a tunic that proves overly large.

"Ready?" Finn says from the entrance, blade in one hand, unused blaster in the other. He even stands differently when he's 8sev, tensely angled, like a weapon. 

"Where's Shorty?"

“Who?” 

"I don't know! Little guy, big eyes? All goggly?"

Finn pauses getting dressed and just stares at him. His brows start to draw together into a scowl.

"Shorty!" Poe all but yells. He tries to send Finn a mental image, but it doesn't work, not if Finn's annoyed expression is anything to go by. "It's hard to pick out identifying details on the holo when you're distracting me with the whole blowing dudes up and waving away mortar shells."

Naked from the waist up, Finn punches out the false lid of the chest. He extracts his go-pack, the one Poe knows matters, full of vax doses and multipurpose rations, scrims and stims, and his real comms, the one he ignores when he's undercover _like an arrogant idiot_ , as well as the kyber crystal he's had forever but has yet to turn into a saber. He slides it onto his back, snugs the straps with a single determined jerk, then reaches for a shirt. They won’t be coming back. 

"Oh," Finn says at last, "Stelto? He's out cold and stuffed in a grain sack and also _we're about negative five from getting blown to hell_ so let's go."

"Where?" Poe asks, even as he shrugs on a cloak that Finn hands him and stuffs blaster bolts into its capacious pockets. "What are you planning?"

"Close your eyes," Finn tells him and Poe does, automatically. Finn's hand covers Poe's face, grasps at it, then drops free. Before the touch is gone, he has shared the extent of his emerging plan — they'll ransom Shorty to his associates in the Geera-Hannuh cartel, flip them for access to Mator's contacts, and finish out the deal on their own. Finn squeezes Poe's neck and leans in, kissing him hard and rough and way too fast.

"I'm taking your ship and command when we get out of this," he says, rough in that 8sev voice of his. He wraps a complicated-looking sweater-cape around his torso and knots the ends. "You should be an _entertaining_ captive. Lots to prove." 

Poe shivers, knowing Finn saw his thoughts, and wants that too, enough to play the part. "Apprentice me, even."

"You have debts to pay." 8sev arches a brow but only spares a second of eye contact to show he’s serious. "Let's start _there_."

Anyone else and that answer wouldn’t work at all, but all Poe can say is, "I’m going to hold you to that."

"Great, looking forward to it." Finn drops the act and points to the ladder. "Now can we go?"

"Yeah," Poe says, checking he’s got everything that matters and running over to the cabinet for a bigger rifle to shove under his cape. Y’know, for luck. "Yeah, we can go."

As they scramble up the ladder, Finn's handprint glows, green and saffron, sunlight and foliage, across Poe's face. If the one he wears on his own face is a farewell, this one's a greeting: fingers like fronds, shifting from palm to leaf and back again. Poe sees through the glow as though he always has, as if it’s always been home.

"With me?" Finn asks as they hit the street. Stelto's slung over his shoulder. 

"Always," Poe replies, keeping close.


End file.
